Lake Forest-Lake Bluff History Museum

Edith Newell Childs, 1874-1952.

Lake Forest Golf Club, 1895. Edith and Madeline Newell are at right in hats below the tree.

Like for so many, the Newell family story in Lake Forest begins in the summers. The Newells resided in Kenosha, Wisconsin, but by the 1890s they were spending the warmer months in Lake Forest.Gertrude Newell Aldrich and her sisters numbered among the first members of the Onwentsia Club when it was founded in 1895, and before that of its forerunner the Lake Forest Golf Club. Edith Newell was an accomplished golfer – she placed 5th out of 45 in Onwentsia’s Governor’s Cup in 1898, which billed itself as the first women’s golf tournament to be held in the west. To earn her 5th place, Edith shot a 123 (the winner shot 110); the newspaper account noted that all participants had to “contend with a strong westerly breeze."

Gertrude Newell married Frederick Clement Aldrich in 1890; the Aldriches were the first to settle permanently in Lake Forest, purchasing and remodeling a home at 725 Sheridan Road they called “The Nook.”Edith Newell met her future husband C. Frederick Childs on a boat trip around the world. The two were married in 1900, and by 1906 they moved to Lake Forest. Edith and her husband settled in a home, Shadow Lawn, at 737 North Sheridan Road, right next door to her sister Gertrude.Their mother, Mary Olivia [Mrs. Octavius] Newell, lived across the street at Littlecote. A third sister, Madeline Newell, lived with the Aldriches on Sheridan as well. Active and respected in the community, Madeline was the only female member of first Lake Forest Zoning Commission when it was formed in 1923.

The Newell Sisters: A Summer Story